50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Page 36
CHAPTER 38
Life and
Runaway Karleen
1994–1997
Whenever possible, between my classes, teaching Head Start, Mark’s work, and our multitude of duties, Mark and I met for lunch, dinner, a movie, lovemaking, and more gab sessions to discuss and debate anything and everything. I began to appreciate and respect some of his philosophical beliefs and thoughts I’d considered so hideous while cemented to my Fundamentalist ideals. With our newfound physical and emotional intimacy, we became renewed friends, lovers, and comrades—far more than we’d ever been before. Mark was forever delivering flowers to me in fun and crazy ways. We craved and appreciated each other in the many ways each of us gave and received.
In the past we were never able to live in peace, because my strong religious views always came between us. However great it may have been to no longer be divided in that way, I now lacked a religious reason to share the man I loved. The only reason to continue being a plural wife, other than for our children’s sakes, was my newfound love for Mark. That became the ultimate irony.
Still, nothing stopped me from being concerned about Diane—her feelings, her life, or Mark’s taking or stealing her time for our escapades. The first few months when I’d bring it up to him, he’d reprimand me.
“It’s my life! My money, energy, and thoughts are mine. They are mine alone unless I decide to share them. Where, when, why, how, and who I spend my time with is no one’s business but my own. So quit worrying about it, Sophia.”
It took me a few more times to realize he was absolutely right. It was the same with all of us. I was not accountable for Mark’s relationship with Diane, his kids, or anyone else. I was discovering my only responsibilities were to my underage children and myself. That was part of my new understanding about life, but changing my beliefs was quite different from suddenly being able to alter my actions, feelings, and habits.
I was working really hard to “let go and let live.” More and more, I openly joined Mark in his disenchantment with and defection from the religious dogmas we’d been raised to adhere to. Unless I felt our children were being abused, I stepped aside from their conflicts with Mark as well. It was tough, but I was refusing to be our family’s “relationship-fairness monitor” any longer.
In the past, I was too worried about being fair to Diane to consciously take part in a torrid love affair with Mark. Lingering in the back of my mind was always “the turnaround.” I would wonder, “If Mark spends this much time with me when it is Diane’s supposed time; he has probably done things the other way around when I was too busy in survival mode to care or notice.” I figured if the tables were ever to turn, I wouldn’t stick around.
I envisioned, not only for myself, but because I loved Diane, she would have courage to find the happiness she deserved with a man who would love and be with only her. But I felt sure she’d never go in that direction, no matter how many inequalities she felt there were between us.
Friends wondered why Diane seemed to be in denial about Mark’s and my love affair. But as I had often done before, she too may have moved herself into survival mode, choosing to keep her eyes closed tightly to anything painful or threatening. No matter what she knew or didn’t want to know about what Mark was doing behind her back, she loved him too. She always would.
It certainly wasn’t her fault I resented her mental presence in the middle of our love affair. The more in love I became, the more difficult it was to stay. When I’d express that unease to Mark, he’d remind me of the allegiance I owed him, Diane, and our family.
“After all, you’re the one who persuaded me to marry her, and both of us made commitments to her,” he’d say emphatically. “We have to honor them.” Or he’d say, “You know I can’t leave Diane,” as if he thought I was asking or demanding he leave her. “But I can’t and won’t do this without you Sophia! I’ve always believed in plural marriage. I’ve known all my life I’d live it. I will always be a polygamist.”
“Your remarks sound like all three of us have to stay in polygamy just because we started there,” I told him. “And you know darn well I am not asking you to leave her! I’m ticked off you would even insinuate for a split second I’d ever expect you to. I might like you to be able to, but we both know neither of us could live with ourselves if you left her for me. If the day ever comes I can’t live this way any longer, I will have to be the one who leaves.”
“I know, Sophia. I wish I could help you more, to make things more bearable for you, to love and kiss all of your heartaches away. It’s hard for me too. Sometimes even I cry when I have to leave, but you know I have to.”
*****
During my first two years attending SLCC, Mark’s perseverance was sometimes stronger than my own. His encouragement and assistance with our kids, the housework, and the meals were not only appreciated and admired by me, but by everyone else as well.
Teaching and going to school part-time was holding me back from graduating as quickly as I needed and wanted to, so I decided to quit teaching and become a full-time student. For the next two years I took twelve to eighteen credit hours per quarter.
Those days and hours were grueling. Along with mine, Mark’s patience started growing thinner by the day. We hardly had any quality time together. When I could be home with the kids, he would steal me away alone. Of course, I felt guilty for leaving the kids, for buying a muffin on campus, or for going out to dinner without them when there was too little food at home. I missed my kids so much! I wasn’t playing with them and helping them enough. I felt so guilty for feeling guilty I was cracking again. When I tried to study at home, I’d often hear Mark lose his temper with the kids. I’d rest my forehead on my textbooks and notes, and sob. I dreamed of a good-natured, patient, doting child-sitter for their sakes so I could relax, learn, and get my schooling done without feeling such torment for being away from them so much.
To top it all off, I became suspicious when Mark was gone from me and our home at times that were once considered “my time.” Maybe Mark’s “turnaround” was already happening. Yet, it didn’t’ feel right to try to change him or his decisions, so I moved into distraction and my own life again. I did what I always did to stay sane. I kept my mind, body, and heart busy in other directions. But this time was different. If Mark could have a love affair with Diane, I could have one too.
When a staunch-LDS philosophy professor and I passionately debated religion and philosophy, we began to justify our flirting around my marriage situation. Before long, we found ourselves creating intellectual and emotional highs before and after class.
The great part of those brain-teasing rendezvous was, no matter how much we cared for each other, we were both very safe. I knew he would never ask me to commit adultery with him. His were religious reasons, and mine were based on my personal values. While I foolishly tested the possible grounds of freedom from Mark, while he held to his convictions to forever be a polygamist, I participated in crazy, advance-and-retreat experiments, until the professor had finally had enough.
*****
Another instructor at SLCC told his students about his Boy Scout outings and Church callings, but his prejudice and blatant disdain toward polygamists was manifest in his words and his cruel treatment of me.
My name and our address must have been the dead giveaway from the first day of class. He delighted in setting up situations and then snatching every possible opportunity to ridicule and embarrass me in front of other students. When I attempted to refute his accusation that I had cheated on a test—which every student in class knew wasn’t true—and of being immoral, he rudely interrupted and meted out more unjust and vile comments.
His malicious behaviors tore open and salted a myriad of not-so-ancient and recurring wounds. In his classroom I never felt safe. Sometimes I’d go in the ladies room and cry in the stall. I wasn’t brave enough to explain to my peers the reasons behind his contempt when they’d ask me, “Why on earth does he treat you so ha
rshly? How does he get away with that? Why don’t you report him to the Dean?” I could no more go to an authority then, than I could as a child and teen. After kindergarten, I’d had no protection from principals or teachers.
My childhood fears and distrust of outsiders—especially Mormons, who had been my archenemies throughout my lifetime—were still holding me at bay. I wanted to get out of his class, college, homework, and stress. I wished I could have run until I felt like a cougar again, until I’d run so fast I could take flight and never return.
Already overwhelmed, it took me nearly three months to pull through that thrashing. But with my Twelve-Step friends on my side encouraging me to keep going, to not listen to “the nasty old man’s crap,” my inner drive egged me on.
“You’ll have to deal with someone’s shit no matter when, where, or how far you go, Sophia.” One precious Twelve-Stepper, an outspoken LDS soul sister I trusted, told me in a private conversation, “Just remember, Sophia, they are the ones behaving like a horse’s ass.” Then she giggled.
In June 1995, at the age of forty-three and a half, I proudly and finally graduated with an associate’s degree in early childhood and elementary education. Other than giving birth to my children, that was the second time I’d felt such a grand sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Mark, most of my children, my sisters Amy and Jolie, and a few other friends were there to watch me graduate with a 3.8 GPA, and on the Dean’s list.
*****
I had the privilege of working full-time at Children First as the Education Coordinator’s assistant. Many privately owned, as well as state and federally funded day cares, were beginning to require their child-care providers to complete 120 hours of training to obtain a childhood development associate certificate. All Head Start teachers and assistants were required to have a Child Development Associate certificate. With my Associate degree in Early Childhood Development, I’d already completed those valuable CDA courses through Head Start staff trainings and with Children First.
It was the most rewarding and enjoyable job I could have ever imagined. In the evenings we taught classes with an emphasis on competency-based curriculum that would be individualized to the needs and experiences of families and children. During our busy prep days, we wrote grant proposals for ongoing government assistance, and set up CDA classes across the state of Utah.
In addition to those jobs, I observed and took anecdotal records of each prospective candidate’s teaching techniques, actions, and qualities, or the lack thereof, in the day care or Head Start facility they worked at. After several of those appointments we’d meet with the providers to discuss the outcomes. Working with those amazing women and a few men was fun and rewarding.
However, I found I was discouraged and annoyed nearly everywhere I went. In the past few years at SLCC, I’d taken a zillion wonderful, early-childhood classes on developmentally appropriate practices, places, and activities—and learned pretty much everything research professed was best for young children. I was especially concerned about the school-age children who were at day care while their regular school was not in session. What they needed and deserved wasn’t happening. When I complained to my boss, she agreed.
Thanks to those classroom observations, the seeds were planted for me to start dreaming of a children’s college. I envisioned a place that would accommodate elementary-age students in the Jordan School District. Fees would be charged on a sliding-scale based on a family’s income. The children would have the opportunity to learn and enjoy countless subjects within their realm of learning style and ability. In 1995 and 1996 there was nothing for Utah children that even compared to my archetype—at least that I was aware of.
For the next year and a half, while my kids were at school, I enthusiastically worked on my ideas. I spent time at the library learning how to write a business plan. I researched already existing day-care charges, locations, community-based statistics, and every need imaginable. I volunteered to work with the Utah State School Age Child Care Association. For the state of Utah to receive federal funding, we set up focus groups for parents across the county to determine their needs and what they desired from child care centers. Part of this research paved the way for my opportunity to fly to Washington DC to attend a three-day National School Age Child Care Seminar and Conference.
The first week of November 1996, with much trepidation, Mark and I put our house up as collateral on a massive loan. After twenty-two years of payments on our home, the balance was only $16,000. I remember wondering if we’d ever get that paid off. Back then, $16,000 seemed like a billion dollars! Now we were hocking it for more money than I could fathom. Not only our home, but also two others were required as collateral for our half-million-dollar SBA loan. After bringing in two financial partners who also risked their homes, we purchased 1½ acres of land with a 2,400 square-foot building where a semi-functioning day care center was taking place.
Over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday, we remodeled the entrance; we planted flowers, a couple more trees and shrubs, and detailed the yard. Some of our friends and relatives helped paint, and scrub carpets, furniture, and walls.
We did everything else required by the state of Utah to update the codes for childcare licensing. Mark was incredible. For the next five grueling weeks he worked all day long at his regular jobs, and then worked late into the night and every weekend with me. Our ultimate plan was to slowly and progressively revamp the place into the outstanding children’s college we would desire for our own grandchildren.
About the second week of December, shortly before we would reopen, Mark’s resolve and energy came to an abrupt halt. I saw him every other night for the few hours I could go home to sleep, and for a few minutes every other weekend. He said he’d already done all he could do to support my dreams and goals, and now all he could do was deal with the financial worries. I continued to prepare for the opening of the center.
I purchased all the necessary food, school supplies, and toiletries, and hired eight Day Care Providers who’d completed their Child Development Associate certificates, and were ready for eighty-five children to show up.
When we opened our doors on January 7th, only twelve of those eighty-five children listed on the rolls the previous director had given me, showed up for care. In the next few months I found several more significant problems. We had to spend over $2,000 to repair the basement cracks after it filled with two feet of water; and the faulty heating and cooling systems. I also discovered I’d been given false information about the previous day-care center’s functionality and numbers.
According to my figures, as well as my bookkeeper’s and banker’s figures, we should have been at break-even point when we opened and in the profit area with new enrollments within a few months. I had no other choice but to use our small amount of “working” capital to fix things and try to stay afloat. We were quickly sliding into the red by thousands of dollars.
Through all of our dread, our enrollment rapidly increased the first month. Children were so happy there, they didn’t want to leave at the end of the day, and parents were delighted to leave their children with our superior day-care providers.
*****
Karleen, like her dad and me, had always taken the side of the underdog. She loved them all and desperately wanted to fix and save them. She brought home victims of abuse (real or imagined) who had been kicked out of their homes by their “horribly mean” parents. But before we were aware, a few of her supposed friends talked fourteen-year-old Karleen into getting “fixed” with a few drugs. While all of my time was consumed with my business, struggles with Karleen became worse by the minute. She quit helping at the center, and when she got permission to go somewhere with her friends, she often didn’t return for hours or days. She would sometimes call to tell me she’d be home, and still she wouldn’t show up.
From the middle of December to the end of January, my life was totally consumed with my day care center. Both partners held full-time jobs, Mark ha
d quit, and I was trying to do everything myself. My jobs were teacher, driver, director, janitor, bookkeeper, cook, and manager. I had to show up at the center at 5:00 am and stay until nearly midnight every night but Sundays. With Karleen taking advantage of my insane workload, my other children’s needs and concerns, my fragile marriage, the long hours, and financial stresses, I lost twenty-three pounds in six weeks. My body trembled, and I cried nearly all the time. I knew I couldn’t keep going alone. With credit card money, I hired an assistant bookkeeper/director/bus driver, and a part-time student janitor to help us survive.
My assistant director was great. With her help, I had a few minutes to breathe. But no matter what I tried, by the end of January I knew I couldn’t keep my dream alive without massive amounts of working capital. We had absolutely bottomed out all personal resources as well. My banker said they had already loaned me the maximum amount possible, and every other seemingly plausible option was negated by another problematic issue. There were several wonderful families who pled with me to make our place stay afloat. Those grateful, caring, and generous parents’ loan offers still wouldn’t have been enough to pay our bills and pay someone to take over for me while I left to go find my missing daughter. With every review of our budget and situation, the bottom line was, Karleen, my other children, my marriage, and my health were my first priorities. I’d have to let the center go.
In April 1997 my dream of a children’s utopia ended about as quickly as it had started. Most of the teachers and the families of the forty-seven day-care children we’d enrolled were distraught. Some were even cantankerous they’d been let down after such a dynamic build-up. As soon as my Utah School-age Child Care Association conference in Florida was complete, I ended every obligation with them, closed the center’s doors, and set out to get Karleen back home.